Today’s article continues our Love Letters Series, in which readers of the page submit an ode to their favorite warband. The Love Letter Series was kicked off by this post encouraging people to play the warbands they love and tell others about the experience, inviting readers to contribute their passion to this website – if you have something to say, by all means let me know wherever you found this posted or by emailing me at SpentGlory@Gmail.com.

Today’s Love Letter is a special one, penned by Davy of the What the Hex podcast and the Mortal Realms Underworlds blog (as well as the very short lived ‘Hexodus’). Davy has spent the last months working pretty diligently on the Thricefold Discord which is a very mechanically interesting warband just looking for their glove-fit of a Rivals deck in Nemesis. Seismic Shock was almost great, but fell short in agonizing ways, just as Slaanesh would like it. Davy has pivoted to RWB and took them to a fourth-place finish in two back-to-back grand clashes; just shy of the podium in both The Madtown Throwdown and the NOVA Open this year. Let’s read below about his journey there and how he fell in love with the 3xD along the way.

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Who are you, and where are you from? How did you get into Underworlds? Do you have a local group you play with, and if so, do they have an online presence to help people find you?

• I’m Davy- from Madison, Wisconsin, USA.  I was headed to Holy Havoc (in… I wanna say November 2017?), a team tournament for Age of Sigmar with my co-host, Eric from The Mortal Realms.  I heard some folks had talked up a small skirmish game that seemed cool, and when we got there Brad Schwandt (Rhellion) had a few extra warbands.  He had some promotional cards he said he’d give to anyone who could beat him.  (Spolier alert: I did not beat him).   I gave it a shot though, and loved the quick games and not having any fiddly measurements.  Eric and I played a lot of Sepulchral Guard vs Garrek’s Reavers in those days.  These days, I of course, do have a local group- the Madison meta, and our podcast, What the Hex?!, which at the time of writing has been running for almost 6 years.  We have a discord for our podcast network where you can always find us.

What’s the warband/deck/pairing you love, and how did you two sweethearts meet?

• I’m here of course, to talk to you about The Godsworn Hunt.  No wait, The Thricefold Discord.  Specifically, paired with Rimewyrm’s Bite.  When they dropped in Deathgorge I thought they looked super interesting (you can hear Brian and I geek out about them with our first impressions here.)  I had to put them on the back burner for a while because Brian was real excited to use them, and I was maybe exploring Dromm at the time.  But when Brian threw up his hands in exasperation, I knew my time had come.  After a brief dalliance with Voidcursed Thralls for über-duber control, I decided to try Rimewyrm’s Bite.

What makes the deck so fun to play in your experience?

• I’m a real sucker for control play.  When Steel City Underworlds was around, I shamelessly stole their control Steelhearts build (not the Katophrane Relic era- I’m not that much of a degen) and I had a successful run at the first (and so far only) ATC alongside Path to Glory’s Aman and Jonathan using a book-reading Mollog (okay, so maybe I am that much of a degen).  Thricefold Discord, which I often abbreviate to 3xD because it aggravates Brian so much, offers a number of tools to do exactly that, which I’ll get into below.

See the deck list here for Once Bitten Thrice Shy

• The overall theory with this deck is to leverage your small numbers and high number of ping cards to really focus your damage output exactly where you want it, while using Temptations and False Gifts to supplement your attempts to turn off whatever your opponent is trying to do.  It’s a great plan, and 60% of the time, it works every time.  An earlier version of the deck leaned heavier into domains, but I jettisoned most of them as they were too much of a tax on my gambit slots.  I should note that a couple late card switches were pulled from a deck posted by Jabbawock (and Baconborne from PtG) that convinced me to slot back in Deadly Wards

How have you found success and/or fun with the deck?

• The most fun I’ve had with the deck is anytime a new play emerges with the False Gift upgrades.  About a third of the time, I only think of a given play *after* the game is over, but it’s still exciting.  False Gifts, how do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…
  • Invincible Armour
    • Take a friendly fighter out of kill range with a late bump to health (I often have Vexmor waddling around on one move)
    • Slow an enemy fighter right before a crucial charge
    • Do the same to prevent a fighter from leaving a territory you need them to stay in, or to prevent them reaching an objective
    • Pump an enemy fighter who is about to die anyways so they give an extra bounty
  • Helm of Insight
    • Most often giving this to Lascivyr who experiences no downside, but is now on two blocks with single supports (!)
    • Sometimes give to Vexmor if he just can’t seem to inspire
    • Hand to an enemy ranged fighter who can’t or doesn’t want to move.  A great example is a Stormcoven fighter who has charged out and is getting ready to turret with their spell attack or Blades of Azyr melee attacks
    • Heck, limit the range on “choose” spell gambits
  • Perfect Blade (could almost be a whole article!)
    • Particularly relevant to the current meta- blip the Parasite out of existence right before you kill the bearer to brick significant portions of the power and objective decks.  Even easier if they give *you* the parasite.
    • Mess with Malevolent Masks (though this is more dangerous with Revealed Aspect) and less impactful since there are more masks available.  But it can be the tipping point against Completed Pact or Victorious Veils.
    • Turn off an objective that scores for needing a certain number of upgrades, like Loaded With Plunder, Pursuit of Excellence, or Gravelords
    • Turn off attack actions that are more powerful or threatening (like ranged attacks)
    • Turn off upgrades that the opponent is counting on to give them extra survivability like extra wounds or defense (which you might have given them in the first place… is that plans within plans or just being… excessive?)
    • Turn off upgrades that are putting a crimp in your power deck’s game plan (Take off those Boots of Warding, Cyreni!)
    • Or most boring… putting it on your own fighter to hit someone hard.
  • Of course, a lot of this can just be countered by taking an action to discard the card, but losing one of twelve activations in a game is powerful in general and situationally game-changing.
  • As an extra note, any voidcursed target can’t even take the action to resist these, so extra mileage there.
• Most of my success has been against aggressive decks that give me the opportunity to slow their scoring by hanging back and counter-punching the first wave, while debilitating or isolating the second wave.

What advice do you have for other players who might want to try your warband on for size?

• Like any warband, reps will really help this one sing.  But this deck particularly benefited from really understanding what the opponent was trying to do.  Although I lost to Cyreni’s Razors with Rimewyrm’s Bite at our Q3, I was one misplay away from bricking their R1 scoring even in the longboard because I’d been able to think about and prepare for that matchup.  As a counterexample, Tony Kopach really roundhouse kicked me across the room at NOVA because I hadn’t played into Sepulchral Guard enough to really think about what scores I could afford to fight, and what I needed to just make my peace with.  You can’t play control if you don’t know what you’re trying to stop.
• Understand that some successful play patterns will involve slowing your own scoring down if it slows the enemy down.  In my last round at NOVA, Oliver from Northbeast severely outplayed me in the first two games, but some scratching and clawing in Game 2 kept the series even.  Then in Game 3, I passed on scoring one of my most reliable surges (Get Moving) in Round 1 so as not to give up early charges and things went much, much better.
• You have one push in your gambits, (Brief Emergence) but it’s a doozy.  Sure, there’s a downside, but it can often be mitigated by Boots of Warding, Tough Enough, or Inured to Hardship.  And there’s the fact that that fighter gets your push too.  This one is functionally a distraction or a sidestep, which allows you to push on to or off an objective, into our out of a crucial territory, etc, etc.  You can set up assassination runs on key fighters or toss someone in a lethal (that perhaps you created).
• Triumph of Paramountcy is a real solid game ender- either to maintain a lead, or to steal one.  Consider shifting your strategy to keeping Vexmor alive, or killing the enemy out from around their leader if needed.
• If you really want to level the game up, figure out how to leverage the two temptations in this deck.  The games where I pulled this off felt really strong, but there were others that the cards just felt dead, round after round.
• The objective deck is maybe the roughest part of this build.  Some are better than they look (i.e. Spread Out scored more than you’d think and often for two).  Some objectives are really depending on particular power cards to pop off, so understand the relationship between the two.

What threats do you find most challenging to face? Are there any warbands or strategies that others can use to beat this warband or pairing?

• I’ll admit to not having prepared with this warband to the extent that I would have liked, so to some extent, there’s still a lot of warbands I don’t have enough reps into- and it’ll be inherently weaker into anything you don’t know how to deny.  At first blush, I’ve struggled into something like Sepulchral Guard, which has a high enough glory ceiling that they can score well even if you deny a lot, and you’re not going to get Triumph of Paramountcy from a warband that’s resurrecting its fighters via their leader.  With only one push, no scything, and so-so accuracy, it’s hard to switch gears to aggro enough objective holders away.
• Ultimately the warband is potentially very fragile.  Vexmor can hang out for a long time with his damage reduction, or he can just cave in early if the rolls are right.  If you have a way to burn him down, I lose my big range 2 damage, and it cuts down one of the paths to Triumph of Paramountcy.

Anything else you’d like to tell the community?

• At times I bounce around between warbands like a kid in a candy shop, but getting into a deep dive on a warband can be so very satisfying.  I probably played this warband for about 10 games over the course of a month in preparation for NOVA and Q3.  That’s chump change for some, but I also happened to be training up my son so he’d feel comfortable playing at “event speed”.  Even that amount of repetition felt rewarding, not because it made me feel like I mastered the deck, but because it made me see how much more there was to learn and explore, even within the one pairing.  Man, I love this game.

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Thank you to Davy for sharing your experience and thoughts on an interesting pairing, helping the community figure out how to make the most of a warband that scrapes the competitive top tier and is surely just a year or two away from winning a major event. Hopefully you’ve learned something about Rimewyrm’s Bite, Thricefold or both. I do have one parting piece of wisdom added in post by Davy himself – always count your cards at the end of the game and make sure you have your False Gifts back! After NOVA it ends up his Perfect Blade went home with somebody else. It’s all sorted now, but some gifts are just too good to return willingly…

While there are a few Love Letters in the works, there is always room for more. I’d love to hear your thoughts about an older or lesser or weird warband/pairing, what drove you to fall in love with it, and how you’ve piloted it to success – and especially piloting it to fun. If you have a warband you’d love to wax poetic about and serenade the wider community, let me know! I’m always accepting new submissions at SpentGlory@gmail.com. Until next time, grab the warband you love, a couple friends, and Spend some Glory!